A few dozen more pictures, a few dozen more hugs, and Griffin and Liddicoat were in a car in the bowels of the stadium, headed back to the hotel. The plan was to work out together at the hotel, get to bed early and catch the first flight to Dulles on Sunday morning. On Monday, Griffin starts another work week as the quarterback of the Redskins, with the first-place New York Giants visiting FedEx Field the following Monday night.

What more could he have asked from the weekend? It played out as if scripted by Griffin himself: The wins came in pairs, the touchdowns came in bunches, the love came in bushels, and even the hatred of Cowboys Nation felt clean and full of more awe than bile.

“To play the way we played on Thursday,” Griffin said, “and then get to come to this game and watch the Bears become bowl eligible for the third straight year – it’s just been an amazing few days.”

But then Griffin’s phone started chirping. Some more people were looking to get pictures taken with him. Was he still around? Could he come to the field?

Griffin climbed out of the car and walked back through the tunnel. He draped his arms around a few more shoulders, smiled into a few more cameras, shook a few more hands. After the last one, he paused for a few seconds to make sure everyone was good.

The kid is a stud on every possible level. I still have a hard time believing he is real.

"I’m never under the assumption that you draft for need. You draft the best available football player on the board. ... Because, in the long run, they are the ones who will help you win the most games." - Scot McCloughan

One of them was David Windham, a former football player who appeared in three games as a replacement player for the Redskins during the strike-shortened 1987 season, and a family friend of the Griffins whose daughters ran for Robert Griffin Jr.’s youth track team in Copperas Cove.“I remember the first time I met Robert,” Windham said of the younger Griffin. “He was 12 years old, and it was at a track meet. I immediately called up all my friends and my brothers and said, ‘I just saw the next world’s greatest athlete.’ This kid was destined for stardom. He was doing all the events back then — high jump, long jump, hurdles — and was winning all of them."I asked him, ‘Son, what do you want to be when you grow up?’ He said, ‘It’s not about what I want to be, sir — it’s what I will be. I will be an NFL quarterback, and I will be a lawyer.’ ”

:idea: I WILL win the lottery and I WILL [censored] Kate Upton (I’d include Shakira, but why be greedy? )